


Guilt

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: One Shot, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-31
Updated: 2007-07-31
Packaged: 2019-01-19 06:41:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12405087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: He straightens his clothes and brushes dust from his robes, like a nervous boy on the night of his first date. Perhaps murder is his beau.





	Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

There’s a spider in the sink. Tiny, black and many-legged. It’s moving, it’s living. For a few moments he simply watches it, admiring the beautifully controlled walk, admiring how, like water, it flows, moving each leg in turn in a perfectly coordinated dance. It seems to have no desire to leave the grubby basin, wandering around almost pointlessly.

He needs to wash his face.

He turns the tap a little and watches the thin stream of rust-flecked water begin to trickle out. It slides underneath the spider, lifting it slightly, but not enough to let it slip down the plughole: not yet, not now. The legs are not graceful now, as they wave and skitter madly. Desperately. He watches it again, sees how it struggles. He holds a thin finger under the water. It is cold, but not unfairly so. He is not hurting it. He is not causing it pain. It can struggle for a few moments longer.

He waits, taking comfort in the flailing legs.

Suddenly, in a furious, rushing movement, he twists the tap around and around and washes the spider down the plughole. He imagines that it screams in fear and exhilaration.

He feels no guilt.

…

He lifts the blade slightly and admires the yellowish beam of light reflecting off one end. The dragonfly on the table wriggles and squirms, held by invisible binds. _Stay there, do not move,_ he thinks, and the creature unwillingly obeys. He does not ask why he can do these things. He is grateful for it.

With clinical precision, he slides the blade down the side of the dragonfly’s thin body. Its tail flicks involuntarily. Angrily he repeats his instruction. _Do not move._ The mere thought stuns the creature into submission.

The wing falls, lightly, to the table. He strokes it with one white finger.

There is no need to imagine a scream. He can hear one.

He feels no guilt.

…

He strokes the head of the great snake, ensuring to avoid its stare. He has found that it is a comfort to sit here, in the damp cold, with the creature that obeys his every command. He has found that the snake understands him more than any person ever has. He decides that, when he leaves Hogwarts, he will have a snake as a companion: a friend would not be required.

He feels a strike of tension in the animal and smiles. He murmurs in the guttural hissing and spitting that he has grown to find beautiful. _Do not become restless, my beauty. Tonight is the night._

He straightens his clothes and brushes dust from his robes, like a nervous boy on the night of his first date. Perhaps murder is his beau.

He hisses. _Now._

As he looks at her body: crumpled, dead on the floor, an involuntary twist flicks his lips: a cruel smile.

He feels no guilt.

…

He ascends the stairs, his robes rustling slightly. Uncharacteristically fanciful, he imagines himself as Death, rising to claim three new victims. Tonight he would claim their last moments, last words, last breaths. These truths would rest with him.

He opens their door slowly, hearing the clink of china, the soft rumble of civilised conversation. He listens for a moment. _After all, Tom, it’s high time you settled down: you can’t keep flitting from girl to girl – not since…that **harlot**. After all, that must have been sixteen years ago…_

Anger flits across his face. He knows who the harlot is.

He enters the room, moving regally, as he has learned to, and the three faces turn to him. In turn, each gained a look of pure, unadulterated terror. One sits, stiff and stunned, at the end of the table. He recognises this one: the man’s features are a mirror image of his own.

His lip curls in hatred. He will dispose of this one first.

He runs his eyes over them: eyes still open, still bedecked in their filthy Muggle dress robes.

He feels no guilt.

…

He looks at the child, the Zeus to his Cronus. He will not let him stand in the way. The taste of power now salts his lips. The Wizarding World is but a breath away. This child will not break the chain.

The mother, the redhead, the _silly girl,_ lies lifeless to one side.

_Farewell, Harry Potter,_ he thinks. _Farewell, broken destiny._

He raises his wand, almost lazily. The words are sweet to his tongue: the familiarity strangely warming.

_Pain, terrible pain, agony, ripping him from every side, every way, every piece…._

And yet.

He feels no guilt. 

…

_‘Try, try for some remorse.’_

He closes his eyes, just for a second. And remembers the book. The note: _to redraw one’s soul on must take the utmost vow…_

For a fleeting second, he considers it. The thought is surprisingly pleasing. A whole soul, unfragmented: no more pain, no more screams.

But he cannot. The one magic trick the most powerful sorcerer the world has ever seen cannot manage.

He feels no guilt. 


End file.
